Chapter CL: Winds of Change

July 14, 2547 (UNSC Calendar)/

Esztergom (Ezhtergom), Viery Territory, Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

"You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler."- Dennis Waitley

I hadn't actually gotten into a fight with her, I had just sensed the storm brewing. I told Hanna that I was going to go out for a walk and she shrugged. It was better for the both of us if we each had an hour or so to cool our heads off.

Hey, I've got a great idea, you should call Marina and catch up with her like Pavel recommended!

Shut up brain.

Damn, that was a terrible idea, if only because of the current situation.

Maybe you could go to a bar, have a few drinks to calm yourself down and think it over.

Shut up brain.

The sun was up in the sky, about three-quarters on the way to the summit. On earth it would've been about ten and a half, but here it was almost twelve. I don't know how Pavel would explain the difference between Earth Standard Time and the longer hours and days in Reach. It had taken men months to get used to the completely different sleeping cycle in Jericho VII.

As I looked at the sun I realized that my eyes weren't burning as much as they should and immediately looked away, chastising myself for becoming more and more like one of those freaks.

So there I was, thinking about the weirdest and most unusual things that you could imagine, walking down the street as if everything was perfectly fine. I know people often had weird thoughts, but I don't think that anybody short of a mental patient had the same kind of images in their mind that I did. It wasn't unusual for me to imagine something only to suddenly have it show up around the corner. Most of the time I knew what was real, but there were those few rare occasions when I didn't. It worried me. I knew well enough to tell that three Ghosts chasing a Warthog through the highway were fake or that the sight of Marines jumping over a shop window wasn't real, but sometimes I looked around for a sniper when a truck backfired or jerked sideways in an attempt to dodge mortar fire at the sound of aircraft. That's what worried me.

I stopped at an intersection, realizing that I had passed the underground crossing and doubling back when something vibrated in my pocket. I almost jumped and could feel myself separating my feet slightly in order to be more balanced in case of an attack. I groaned at my own shakiness and pulled out my cell phone. It was a message on the military net, from one Captain Tahlia Hayes.

I frowned at the name but nevertheless opened the message. It was a professionally redacted letter coming from my el-tee, now captain.

"Classified," I muttered, reading the mail's subject, "not surprising."

I shook my head and glanced around. Most people walking on the sidewalk were taking the underground crossing or instead walking into the two buildings in between it and myself. I was alone.

It did pay to be safe, so I walked to the wall of the nearest building and pressed my back against it, looking around for cameras. If an ONI officer saw me opening classified information in a public space they would most likely put a hit on my head. I made doubly sure to cover the holographic display with my body and started to read the letter. It didn't exactly look like it had written by her personally. It most certainly didn't sound like anything she would say to me.

I wonder how long till she finally tries to kill me? I asked myself.

Had I been holding an archaic paper letter, I would've most likely crumpled it in my hand or maybe even dropped it in surprise.

I'll be brief. The ODST platoon in the UNSC Flawless was being expanded to a company-sized unit. Our twenty-four-man platoon would be scrapped and the members inserted into one of four different platoons. The first three platoons were to be regular ODST units, if you can call an ODST unit regular that is. The fourth and last platoon was to be a specialized one. I had to read through that section a couple of times. Further specialization in the Shock Troopers was something that you only heard about in declassified reports or saw in movies.

Captain Hayes would take command of the company as well as the first platoon. Dajani, soon to be made an officer and promoted to first lieutenant would be her CO and take command of a second platoon. A third individual from the outside would be in charge of the third platoon.

That left me, the dysfunctional schizophrenic in charge of the most specialized and valuable platoon in the company. Oh, but that wasn't everything, I was to be made an officer. Yes, you heard right. An officer.

Who made that call?

I laughed. I was anything but officer material. Sure, I was a good enough leader in small units, I'm not going to deny that skill, but leading a whole platoon? A whole platoon full of alpha males and females with Type A personalities? Dear God that was going to be exciting.

Wait. Me, an officer?

I re-read the message again. I was to take several courses from the Officer Candidate School in New Alexandria. Since I was an experienced Marine with over a decade's worth of combat experience as well as knowledge in commanding squad-sized units I would be able to skip most of it. According to the mail the decision came from the general in charge of both battalions on board the Flawless. Hell, the man wasn't even on board the ship, why would he make such a radical decision like that? Technically speaking we weren't even under his direct chain of command.

This reeked of ONI meddling.

Surprisingly enough I found myself smiling at the prospect of having golden bars on my lapels.

"You're going to suck at it, you know?" Schitzo told me.

"Piss off," I replied, borrowing the phrase from Robert.

"Lieutenant," he saluted me with a mocking grin before suddenly disappearing.

I put my phone back inside my pocket and started walking, going over the details. We usually had leaves of about six months, sometimes they were shortened in order to aid a planet under siege, but mostly we had six months vacation and six months deployment, with deployments occasionally being extended in account to us fighting a fucking war. We still had several months to go before we were recalled into service. That meant that I had all the time I needed to become a trim and shiny officer in order to lead my new unit.

My mind went over the possibilities. I deduced that most of the ODSTs being rotated into the Flawless would have experience under their belts. They wouldn't just expand our platoon with fresh recruits and make us a force supposed to spearhead planetary assaults. Like as not the Helljumpers who would be under my command would be survivors from decimated units or maybe worse.

Three regular platoons plus one specialized platoon.

The message had been vague as to the composition of my platoon. If I had to guess I would say that the other three units would be deployed after my own had done some recon and gathered some intel on the enemy. They would be shifted to a more 'conventional' role. That is, if you consider dropping from orbit in a glorified coffin conventional.

I pondered on the issue long and hard. I was particularly bothered by the fact that I would be going back to boot camp. Fine, not boot camp, but the closest thing to it. Boot camp for the slightly richer kids.

I almost bumped into a glass wall.

"Huh?"

I did a one-eighty turn and examined the area around me. I barely had to squint to make out the street name over fifty meters form me. I had gone more than five blocks without even noticing. That wasn't normal, one wasn't supposed to completely disconnect from the outside world, at least not without getting run over by a bus.

"Winchester Defense," I read the sticker out loud. The sticker consisted of two old lever-action rifles crossing one another with the letters forming a circle around them. Huh, just like Claire…

I suddenly found myself thinking about the Ranger. She was one of the only survivors from the Inconvenience. A miracle by most modern standards. She had also lost every last one of her friends and comrades and become seriously depressed. I had been very surprised to hear that she had attempted suicide shortly before I was assigned to the Flawless. Her, the strong and assertive woman that had almost managed to kick my ass post-augmentations. Headstrong and stubborn and set in her ways. The shrink that treated her after that failed attempt must've been a good one in order to convince her to abandon her goal of killing herself. It seemed weird, a girl that most would give their left nut to be with being able to kick their asses with one hand strapped to one leg. Even weirder was that she had given up on life.

Before I knew it I had opened the door and walked inside the gym. It was very similar to a boxing gym. There was a full-size boxing ring right in the middle of the large room. Further to the back there were several karate-style mats laid out, probably to do some light sparring. Boxing sandbags, pears and more cushioned devices than I had seen in my whole life occupied the other three sides.

Very nice, I admitted.

There were plenty of people in the gym. Some were sweating with the sandbags, but most had crowded around the ring in the center and were watching a sparring session.

"Well I'll be damned," I said, smiling at the spectacle.

Winchester Defense was evidently owned and operated by Claire Winchester.

She was on her toes, hopping from one point to another while her opponent tried to make contact. She dodged the blows easily, deflecting the ones that she couldn't completely avoid. The guy was good, I'll give him that, but there was no way in hell that he could handle a gal like Claire. It took her all of thirty seconds to get her opponent in an exotic leg choke. Even then she toyed with him for a while before going in for the kill.

There were some mutterings among the crowd before Claire stood back up, a little bit of sweat running down from her temples. "Can anyone tell me what his mistake was?" she asked her students.

"He stepped into the ring?" one of the guys in the crowd suggested.

Claire smiled and looked at her feet. "Fair enough." The crowd chuckled, hell, even the guy groaning on the floor smiled and shook his head before making his way to his feet. "But for real, where did he go fatally wrong? Metaphorically speaking of course."

Most of the guys just shook their heads and muttered amongst each other, trying to get in good standing with the ridiculously attractive personal defense teacher running the gym. I wasn't surprised that the majority of the people here were men, no doubt word of a sexy martial arts expert got around fast. After all, who wouldn't love to have Claire Winchester above you?

I smiled at the thought of the wake up call that these guys probably got.

"No one?"

I groaned. "He telegraphed his last two punches and his footwork was sloppy."

I immediately regretted drawing attention to myself. The crowd turned to face the newcomer and I suddenly felt seriously overdressed. Everyone was in shorts and t-shirt and there I was, standing in jeans and a plaid shirt. Despite my awkwardness I couldn't let it show, I was, after all, one of humanity's most efficient killing machines.

Up in the ring Claire was smiling. "Think you can do better?"

I shrugged. "I'm not in the mood for fighting right now."

"Aw, come on," she taunted. "What do you think guys?"

Great, I thought as everybody started urging me to go up and get my ass handed to me. Now I have to go up.

I couldn't help but noticing that my jeans were slightly tight across my thighs and that they wouldn't allow me to kick any higher than Claire's waist. I also had my cell on one of the pockets, making for awkward kicking movement regardless of the height of my kicks.

"So, first blood?" she asked me, still giving no indication that she knew me. "Or maybe just a regular countdown?"

"Your gym," I replied. "Your call."

"First blood it is," she said with a decidedly dangerous smile. Claire took two steps back towards her corner before suddenly launching a reverse roundhouse that would've cracked my skull open had her heel collided with my head. But I had only gotten better in the time since our last sparring session. I had gotten a whole lot faster. I took a quick step backwards and leaned my head further back, examining her foot as it flew two inches from my nose.

I was slightly surprised when she followed up with a punch to my nose. I quickly sidestepped and then jumped back to avoid an elbow strike.

"You sure do love spinning," I told her, ducking under a high kick. "And theatrics."

"Me?" she asked, kicking at my thigh and stopping when I raised my shin to block her. "Who's the one who hasn't even raised his guard?"

I rolled my eyes and spun away from her kick before catching her next punch. It went much like it had the first time I caught her first punch, I stopped her abruptly and she attempted to yank her hand back. This time I didn't let her, instead bending her fist backwards and twisting her arm. I blocked a punch from her other hand and turned her around, two of my hands bending her palm upwards before I kicked her in the back of the knee and forced her to the ground.

"Still want first blood Specialist?"

Claire was obviously angry that I had shown her up in front of her students, but honestly, what did she expect? That she was going to completely humiliate me? Let's be fair, she didn't know I was stronger, faster, and more insane than your average human, so we'll excuse her lapse in judgment.

The pretty former Ranger sighed. "Have it your way. Yield."

"I just wanted to talk," I told her, letting her get back on her feet. "I pity the guy that wants to ask you out if this is how you treat everyone."

She smiled at that, still slightly frustrated but no longer angry with me. She turned to face the stunned crows. "Anyone speaks of this and they're dead. Now back to work."

The students quickly dispersed, murmuring to themselves like teenage girls.

"So, Claire, how long has it been?" I asked lamely with a stupid grin. "Two years?"

"Almost three," she corrected, grabbing a towel from the ropes and drying her hair. I noted that it was still the samereddish-brown that it had been. It looked good on her. "You make one hell of an entrance for not visiting."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I heard about…" I stopped, not knowing if discussing her failed suicide attempt would upset her.

"Let's not talk about it," she quickly said. "How've you been?"

"Fine," I replied. "Still in the service, seen some shit."

"I saw enough shit. No need to keep seeing more."

"I've got no marketable skills, besides, I like feeling like I'm doing something good."

"We all know that this is just buying time."

"Don't be like that," I said, knowing the truth in her words. "Tides can still turn."

"Really? Frank, I never took you to be naïve."

"Fine, fine, fine. Have it your way. So how have the last almost three years of your life treated you?"

She got out of the ring, ducking underneath the ropes and waved for me to follow her. I couldn't help but stare at that magnificently formed ass of hers as she walked towards a pair of chairs. As we sat down I could feel myself relaxing. It always felt like she would throw a surprise punch at any second. "Let's see, last three years…Hmm, can't think of anything interesting. You?"

I raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Well, there was this one time when I saw a brute chieftain get squashed by an ODST drop pod," I told her, tapping my chin with my index finger. "Got trapped under a building with a curious elite, that was right before everything went to shit, you pulled me out of there. I don't think I ever told you about that particular conversation."

"No you didn't," Claire confirmed. "Any other war stories?"

"New team, good guys, not as unorthodox as Reaper, but effective nevertheless. I'm stationed on the Flawless. Ever heard of it?"

She shook her head.

"Clothes-lined an elite with a spike grenade. That was a good one. Got in a castle siege."

"A castle siege?"

"It was in Skopje, long story. Classified too."

"Skopje, sounds familiar. How'd that end?"

"Not well," I admitted. "Evacuated less than fifteen percent of the population, but we got some significant ground victories."

"As if that matters."

"Little things." For some reason, I didn't really mean it.

"And lately?"

I sighed. "Lost a squad mate, the platoon medic. He was a good man."

"How'd he go?"

"Energy sword," I said, the image flashing in front of me and making me wince. It seemed almost real. "Died almost instantly. He was carrying me to safety, you know?"

"What happened to you?"

"Plasma bolt to the stomach." I stood up and lifted my shirt, showing her the pale skin in my belly.

"Surgeons did a good job," she said, leaning close to examine the skin grafts. "Once the skin's the same color you won't be able to tell what's original and what's not."

It suddenly seemed to me that having an attractive woman leaning towards my stomach and examining my rather awesome abs could be misinterpreted so I sat back down. "Got grafts on my chest to, plasma pistol I think it was."

"The others?"

"Camilla got a desk job."

"Yeah, I know, we've met up a few times."

"Oh, have you? How does she like it?"

"She hates it, but she's actually helped with some regulations and rules to make the life of military personnel easier."

"Is her hair still black?"

"Last time I checked. Gives her a very femme fatale look, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," I laughed. "It does."

"So, what's up with the rest of the legendary Reaper Squad?"

"Angel…well, Angel disappeared. I guess he just got tired of it all."

"What do you mean disappeared?"

"Disappeared, his passport and registered cards and IDs haven't been used ever since the Inconvenience was destroyed. He was always good with computers, we think that he made himself a new identity and disappeared."

"I can see the appeal."

I nodded, agreeing with her. Retirement in a beach in Viery sounded nice to me. "The rest of the guys are in the same unit I am. Pavel's in my squad, Grigori too."

"Rob and…"

"Snark. Naveen. They're in the same platoon. Different squads."

"And your new CO?"

"Kind of a bitch," I told her truthfully. "She's got a reason for it."

"I won't ask. I sure hope so that you haven't tried to catch up with anyone else and that you just stumbled on me by accident. By the way, how come you came in here? Did you look me up? Stalker."

"What? No!" I laughed. "No, no. I was taking a walk. In fact, I was about to call Marina, catch up with her."

"That why you were taking a walk? Wondering what it would seem like if you called your ex after three years of no contact?"

"I was wondering what Hanna would think."

"Are you still going out with Lockley?"

"Yeah."

"Well I'll be damned. Congrats Frank."

"Thanks. So, have you stayed in contact with Marina?"

"You could say that. After all, she's the one who saved me."

"Right."

I was about to breach the topic of her suicide attempt after that last comment when I noticed Claire looking past my shoulders I turned around just as none other than Marina Bogdanovic, pilot extraordinaire walked past me. She went straight to Claire and leaned in towards her before planting a big kiss on her lips.

"Oh, no wonder you looked familiar," she said, turning to face me.

I was still too stunned by what had just happened in front of me to reply. I was a little turned on too.

"It'sBeen a while, Frank," Marina went on. "You look good."

I tried forming words in my mouth and eventually came up with a gem of a line. "Couldn't you have discovered your bisexuality while we were going out?" I complained. "I mean, seriously…"

Marina and Claire looked at each other before looking at me and laughing loudly. Images of naked flash and feminine moans were going through my mind. They didn't seem as real as the other images I sometimes got. I cursed myself for that.

"It's good to see you Marina," I said finally, standing up and hugging her.

"I'd sure hope so," she replied. "You didn't even bother in almost three years."

"Enough with the three years thing already, it was only two and a half," I complained. "I'm sorry. I just didn't think it important."

"You didn't think that keeping friendships was important?"

Digging myself into an early grave… "No, no. I've just been having some…issues."

Marian placed herself behind Claire and started rubbing her shoulders, looking at me with critical eyes. "I'm the daughter of two respected psychologists, you know. I could help."

I laughed. "I doubt you could."

Marina shrugged, but I barely noticed, instead I was trying not to picture her familiar naked body with the more mysterious curves of Claire. It was an exercise in futility, it was too tantalizing an image.

"I take it you're still in the service," Marina half-asked.

"Yeah. On board the Flawless."

"That's a carrier, right?"

"Yeah."

"Big one too," she said. "Patrol missions?"

"Supposedly, but there's always something."

Claire chuckled at that.

"So Francisco, what have you been up to?" Marina asked, finally stopping the shoulder rub she was giving Claire. "I take it you have something to talk about after all this time."

I shrugged. "I already told Claire most of the interesting stuff. My ship's ODST unit's being expanded to company strength. Might end up being an officer for all I know."

"Let's hope not," Marina joked, smiling.

A little while later Claire left us and returned to her class, drilling the students with close quarters combat techniques and occasionally pausing to utterly humiliate one of them. She was too flashy for my taste, relying on high kicks and spinning motions, but it worked for her and I could appreciate the intimidation and psychological factor that came with fighting a flashy opponent.

I answered Marina's questions to the best of my ability, but it didn't take long for the interrogation format to get boring for both of us. I asked her the thing that I had wanted to know ever since I saw her plant a big damn kiss on Claire.

"How the hell did that happen?"
Marina looked over at Claire, who was currently beating the snot out of a college-age kid, and smiled. I don't think she ever gave me a smile with as much feeling as the one that she was giving her. It made me kind of jealous.

Marina sighed before turning to look at me. "I don't know really. It just happened."

"You never expressed any…interest in women before," I pointed out.

She nodded. "I mean, I could always appreciate a nice-looking woman, maybe even feel a little bit attracted, but with Claire…"

"And you didn't feel this before the Inconvenience went kaput?"

"To be fair, I hardly knew her before that."

"Point taken. I take it you got to know each other as a support group of sorts?"

"Yeah," she said. "Unlike you ODST loners, both of us had friends on the ship."

I nodded, vaguely remembering Vince getting hit while I was getting rescued from that shithole of a planet. "You realize that you owe me like a bunch of threesomes."

"Oh, would Hanna be ok with that?"

"I don't know haven't asked her."

"Maybe you shouldn't."

"Maybe you're right, but your little display of affection's got me all shaken up. Seriously Marina, what the hell?"

"So you're saying that I should've had a threesome with you just because I'm attracted to some girls now."

"More or less," I admitted. Some?

"Would you have done the same for me?"

"I'm most definitely not attracted to men," I said defensively. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You wouldn't even have to cross swords," she went on. "You'd just have to let me take care of you guys."

"Marina, you're freaking me out." I looked around nervously. "And you know that I'm not one for sharing."

"Hmm, maybe I also wanted you all to myself."

"Ok, now you're freaking me out."

Marina laughed and smiled at me. "Same old Frank. It's great to see you."

"You too," I admitted. "Even if it's…weird."

"Weird," Marina agreed. "It's almost time for lunch, want to join us?"

"Nah," I said. "Maybe tomorrow or later, Hanna's going to be wondering why I haven't come back."

"Fight?"

"Pre-emptive retreat before it actually happened," I explained. "But I'd love to catch up some more, you have my number?"

"No."

"Right." I gave her my contact information and in returned jotted hers down. "I guess I'll be seeing you."

"Just don't make it another two years," she called out as I walked out.

"I won't. Promise."

I walked out and the sun hit me in the face, warming me up. The sidewalks were a lot more crowded now that people were leaving their homes or offices to grab lunch with their friends. I was feeling slightly hungry myself. I took a right in order to grab some sushi for Hanna and myself, she would appreciate the peace gesture and I loved raw fish wrapped in sticky rice, even if cucumber just killed it.

"Gotta say, I did not see that coming," Schitzo said, a look of shock still plastered on his face.

"No shit!" Pavel exclaimed. "A lesbian!"

Several of the guys in the Grenadier turned to look at us. Girls kissing girls had been a topic of interest for men since the dawn of time.

"Gay?" he went on, his voice quieter. "Marina, there's no way."

"It's true," Hanna told him. "We had dinner with them."

"And Claire!"

"And Claire," I repeated.

"Wow. If they ever have kids they're going to be great looking."

That was something I could agree with. If they decided to use their DNA to create an embryo then the result would be gorgeous. Provided it was a girl. Despite my thoughts on that I didn't say anything, Hanna would probably not take it well if I agreed with Pavel on other women being beautiful. Couldn't blame her, I felt like punching a wall every time I caught her sneaking a peek at another guy.

"Ok, ok. Lesbians are all good and well, but you as an officer?"

"Well that was abrupt," Hanna said. "Besides, Frank would make a great officer. Isn't that right Frankie?" she asked, kissing me in the cheek.

"The uniform would look good on me, that's for sure."

Pavel scoffed and took a drink from his beer. "So, you're going to be Second Lieutenant Francisco Castillo. What about me?"

"You're going to be my platoon sergeant," I assure him. "I'll see if I can get you bumped up a couple of ranks. How does Sergeant Major sound?"

"That's three pay grades above Frank. You can't just skip through ranks."

"Fine, fine. Master Sergeant?"

"That might be possible. I'm up for promotion anyways."

"See? I take care of my men. I'm a great officer."

"Right you are," Pavel laughed.

"I don't want you to leave," Hanna told me, nuzzling against my neck. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," I said. "It's only a couple of months, and you can come visit any time you want."

"Provided it's on weekends and between certain hours?"

"Exactly," I said.

Frankly I would've preferred to have my goodbye party in a room with my girlfriend, under the sheets. Pavel wouldn't have it, he insisted that we get together for some drinks. It was quite depressing, it was him, Hanna, and me. A party of three. Well, you can count Murphy, Driscoll, and Shaw. If you're feeling nice you could also add Montgomery and Lys, but those two were employees and the other three would've been there regardless. Maybe some of Reaper would've appeared had they not all lived in New Alexandria.

At least I could hang out with them on the weekends.

Officer Candidate School. Christ.

Everybody took the news with the same basic attitude. Most of my friends reacted with the same 'you've got to be joking' expression, but after a while they decided that I'd probably make a good officer. It was their initial reactions that worried me, I was not certain that I had what it took to be an officer. Sure I could lead men into battle and if necessary into their deaths, but I wasn't about to delude myself into thinking that I had all it took. Excellence and all that.

Officers were supposed to be smoother than NCOs. Fiction and my own personal experience always made it seem like a platoon had a well-meaning, nice, and capable officer commanding a unit with his second in command being a hard-ass that took care of discipline. There was a valid reason for that. If men were going to follow someone to their deaths it might as well be someone they liked, but someone still had to make sure that the underlings didn't step out of line. I hoped the guys that they rotated into the new company were used to hard-assness, because Pavel liked to joke that I was a dick even by ODST standards. I always thought of those comments as just that, jokes, but now I was beginning to wonder if there was some truth in them.

But Officer Candidate School wasn't even half the story. After I was given the green light to actually train to become an officer I was going to be sent to an actual officer academy in order to learn how to behave in different situations, how to react to ambushes and the like. I already knew more than half the stuff. I had been ambushed, I had been outnumbered, I had faced enemy armor without heavy weapons, and more.

Now I was going to have some jumped-up little shit telling me how to do what I did for a living.

I sighed, it was going to be oh so annoying.

Even if I was going to do an abbreviated course it was still going to be annoying. Hell, twenty years ago the stupid thing would've lasted over a year. The UNSC had made the courses shorter after the war started. I was going to do an even shorter version of it.

"So Frank," Hanna started, rubbing my arm, "on a scale from one to ten, how much will you miss me?"

"Eight halves."

"Four?" She rolled her eyes. "Ass."

"Oh, come on, it's only going to be a few months," Pavel told her. "Shouldn't be too hard on you."

"I'll never understand how Amber keeps up with you leaving for such a long time."

Pavel smiled. "We make it work."

"And we're glad you do," Hanna replied, smiling. She reached for her glass of coke and raised it. "To Lieutenant Francisco Castillo."

"It's bad luck to do a toast without alcohol," Pavel noted, nevertheless raising his own mug of beer. "But I'll toast to that."

"What choice do I have?" I asked, clinking my own glass with theirs. "I'd never be able to live with myself if I failed to finish OCS and Military Academy."

"Cheers!"

Tomorrow a new chapter in my life began.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proof-reading this chapter.

Change always comes bearing gifts. I think Confucius said that. Nope, it was Price Pritchett. So, are the gifts going to be good ones or are they going to end up breaking halfway through and end up costing more than they're worth? Who knows, depends on how I feel when I write, right? Frank is indeed going to niter training to become an officer and the ODST platoon will be made a company instead. Squads will be altered and new characters will be introduced. You'll have to bear with me while I flesh them out and develop them more. I'll have to do that while developing Second Squad members and other characters at the same time. I don't know why I decided to have a gazillion characters at the same time, but I do enjoy a challenge.

Marina is gay. Whoa. So's Claire. Whoa. I mean, the images that I have of them in my head are awesome and picturing them munching each other's rugs is incredibly awesome as well (pardon the euphemism). But I'd like to think that it makes sense in a way, the way people tend to be struck with someone who helps or saves them. In this situation it just developed into real, honest-to-god, smoking hot lesbic love. But enough about that.

I'd like you to notice that the last line of the chapter is a pun, a very good one at that. All of you should also rest assured that Sgt. Johnson and his squad will be making an appearance before this ends, I already have the whole scenario played out in my head. It'll be shits and giggles.

Frank's mind is worse, his professional future looks better, and he'll have a bunch of badasses covering his back in case he gets in trouble. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Thank you all for your reviews and I will ask you once more to take your time after reading this chapter to leave me some feedback and your thoughts.

Stay strong.

-casquis

PS: What was that? Did I catch that right? Oh yeah, I thought so. One hundred and fifty chapters! Booyah!